Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 16

requires explanation for those of
younger generations. In the 1960s
on Sunday nights, U.S. families
with young children gathered to
watch Mutual of Omaha’s Wild
Kingdom on television. The host,
Marlin Perkins, introduced the
topic of the show and provided
commentary throughout, but he
rarely placed himself in proximity
to dangerous animals. He usually
left close contact with the wildlife to his assistant, Jim Fowler.
Under the Mutual of Omaha Wild
Kingdom fallacy, western militaries assume the role of Marlin
Perkins and rely on proxy forces
in the role of Jim Fowler to do
the fighting on land. There is no
doubt that security force assistance, foreign internal defense,
and combat advisory missions will
increase in importance to national
security; it is difficult to imagine
future operations that will not
require Army forces to operate
with multiple partners. Primary
reliance on proxies, however, is often problematic
due to insufficient capabilities or lack of will based
on incongruent interests.
Like the vampire and Zero Dark Thirty fallacies,
the Mutual of Omaha fallacy confuses an important
capability with defense strategy. While the AOC
recognizes special operations as an Army core competency and identifies security force assistance as a
first order capability, it also acknowledges that Army
forces must not only operate with multiple partners
but also be prepared to exert influence and convince
those partners that actions or reforms are in their
interest.19
The RSVP Fallacy. Finally, the fourth fallacy
solves the problem of future war by opting out of
armed conflict, or certain forms of armed conflict,
such as fighting on land. The fundamental problem
with this RSVP fallacy is that it fails to give due
consideration to enemies in wars or adversaries in
between wars. Wars often choose you rather than
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the other way around. And the application of exclusively standoff capabilities to complex land-based
problems in war leaves decision making in the hands
of the enemy. If Western militaries do not possess
ready joint forces capable of operating in sufficient
scale and in ample duration to win, adversaries are
likely to become emboldened, and deterrence is likely
to fail. As George Washington observed in his first
State of the Union address: “To be prepared for war is
one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”20
Ready Army forces play a vital role in preventing
conflict because they communicate U.S. commitment
and remain capable of compelling outcomes. Army
forces are particularly valuable in deterring those
who might be tempted to wage limited war to accomplish limited objectives. That is because the forward
positioning of capable ground forces elevates the cost
of aggression to a level that the aggressor is unwilling
to pay and prevents the aggressor from doing what
Russia has in Ukraine—posing to the international
March-April 2015  MILITARY REVIEW